Michael Saunders stepped on a sprinkler while shagging fly balls Wednesday, tearing cartilage in his left knee and sidelining him until the All-Star break.

The Toronto Blue Jays said surgery is likely, but Saunders will seek a second opinion.

Saunders said he felt a pop after stepping on a sprinkler head while going for a ball at the team's training facility.

"I just tried to walk off the field and not draw any attention to myself, then when I got into the training room, my knee felt like it was getting tight on the inside," Saunders said. "I've never had any issues with my knees, so that's when I knew that something was wrong."

"I have a pretty good relationship with [A's GM] Billy Beane," Anthopoulos said. "We've done a bunch of small deals. The one thing about Billy, he's always open-minded and you can never offend him; you can ask about anybody at any time to make a deal.

"[Donaldson] is somebody we asked about right at the end of the season. We were adamantly told, 'He's not going to be moved.' Then we asked about him a little later. [Beane] was still adamant that [Donaldson] was not going to be moved. Then I guess, about a week before we did the deal, we asked about him again in a conversation, he again said he wouldn't move him, but it seemed in passing that one of the issues was they wanted to win this year. They might retool, but they weren't going to tear it down.

"[Beane] wasn't going to leave a hole at third base. I'm the one who introduced Lawrie at that point. We weren't going to trade Lawrie, but I wasn't getting anywhere with trying to get Donaldson. Once I introduced Lawrie to fill that hole for him, he seemed a little bit more open-minded and we took it from there. That was the only way I think things could get off the ground, because [Beane] still had every intention to win."

The Toronto Blue Jays have signed an agreement with the University of Guelph to provide research on bringing natural grass to Rogers Centre in time for the 2018 season.

President Paul Beeston made the announcement on Thursday night.

"It's a formal agreement, and it's pretty exciting from our point of view because we've had many discussions, but now it's to the point where we're actually going forward," Beeston, 69, said. "We're looking forward to the report, which should take probably a year, and then we'll go from there."

The University of Guelph, about 60 miles west of Toronto, is home to the Ontario Agricultural College.